Top positive review

One of the very few certainties that can be levelled at this film is that Richard O'Brien was absolutely born to play Dr John Dee, after that the story - such as it is - really just serves as a series of hooks - a gallery, if you will, for the works of punk - or at least Punk by Jarman.

The odd thing about Punk is that it happened at all; as a movement of violent protest it had really very little to protest about - admittedly the Socialist government of the 1970s was failing quite egregiously, but it wasn't the kids that were being short-changed, in fact youth unemployment was still reasonably low; popular music was admittedly beyond banal (witness Demis Roussos on TOTP in 1976) but none of that really stood up as grounds for popular anarchist revolution.

I look back on 1977 with considerable fondness - we were, without any doubt, a far happier country than we are now, all that said, the value of Punk was proved two yeas later when Margaret Thatcher got in, a lasting demonstration, if ever there was one, of the need for the proletariat to retain its power to be angry.

Jubilee is a shamelessly violent film, embodying the threat that Punk explicitly embodied - though very rarely lived up to - for all the sneer and swagger, punks weren't really much more violent than hippies. Jubliees violence is credibly sordid and ugly, and all the more disturbing for being carried out by teenage girls. I think there's probably a Feminist statement vis 'If a man did this it would be more acceptable'. It's also blatantly gratuitous, as if defying the audience to object.

Social collape and resulting dystopia were very much leitmotifs of the 1970s zeitgeist, with Survivors, The Changes, Blake's 7, Old Men At The Zoo and Day of the Triffids all trading on the idea that our society was about to disintegrate, and the world of Jubliee is brutally bleak, with the rich living in gated enclosures, leaving the poor to fight it out with the police, or each otrher.

The story follows the fairly meaningless lives of five homicidal girls - Bod, Mad, Crabs, Chaos and Amyl Nitrate - who seem somewhwere close to the acme of cool, though it is stated fairly explicitly that 'cool' is also meaningless - having sex, killing people, not being able to box very well, pontificating, killing people after having sex with them, and setting fire to cars. Bod kills an old woman for the sparkly gold crown in her shopping bag - it may even be the queen.

The only way out of all this seems to be attaining popular stardom in the music industry, and murdering more successful people is a perfectly acceptable alternative to talent. The arbiter of music is the camp, florriid and sleazy Borgia Ginz, and the end of the story is that all the girls go and live with him in his big mansion in the country. Goodness knows how long that's going to last.

It's a nihilistic mystery cycle of set pieces, liberally flavoured with the teenage wish to shock and, to be fair, back in the 1970s two gay men sharing a bed and having an orgy in Westminster Cathedral *was* shocking. The ubiquitous violence is invariably banal - even as far as the machine gun-toting Toyah Wilcox having pink Marigold gloves under her epaulet - nowhere is killing people presented as cool or easy; the dead body, wrapped in red plastic and dumped in the Thames (just down from Tower Bridge, where it's now so expensive), lies at an awkward angle in the mud.

As a framing and contextual device to the whole ghastly caravanserai, Queen Elizabeth I (attended by a very small lady in waiting - authentic apparently) is transported forward in time (and possibly across dimensions) by Dr Dee to the silver jubilee of her later namesake, the grim reality of which she generally deplores. 'Oh, Dr Dee, how horrible, ah me...'. The counterpoint to all this (which, I suppose, is the keystone to the whole film) is Amyl Nitrate's turn onstage singing Rule Britannia - it's the best bit in the film, though the cathedral party is very good too - (and not unfamiliar actually).

The ensemble cast might as well stand as a gallery of Punk (Derek Jarman's view of it at least); Toyah is brashly strident as Mad, while 'Little' Nell Campbell stickily sleazy as Crabs. Jenny Runacre doubles Bod and Elizabeth I, and so might be the closest thing to a leading lady; Jordan can deliver a number, but I'm not sure she's a natural actor. Ian Charlesson does a beautiful cough and a spit as one half of the gay couple, and Jack Birkett - aka the Great Orlando - turns in a bravura job of Borgia Ginz - rather like a camp(er) Steven Berkoff. The quality is patchy - but that could all be party of the genre - more Punk to make a movie that's a bit crap in places than one that's good throughout.

Jarmanism (if there is such a word) is shot through the whole thing, with all the washed-out colour, campery, violence and melancholy that seemed to be his world view. Jubilee has attained the status of a 'cult classic' - which I take to mean that I am not alone in enjoying and liking it, inspite of parts of it being not very good.

In spite of Vivienne Westwood's objections that it mis-represented Punk, Jubilee remains a very watchable film. I can't remember when I last watched The Great Rock n Roll Swindle - about 1984 I suspect.

Top critical review

Scary prediction of a broken world. Queen Elizabeth 1st comes back to an anarchic Britain! I wouldn't like to see it again, but such films have a role to play, to warn us how bad things can get! I would advise not to watch if already a bit "down" or watch something funny or light hearted afterwards to counteract the negative vibes!P.S. I am no film expert, I am prepared to admit I may have missed the point here!

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...'Jubilee' got it's first TV premier in November'85 on Channel 4 back in the days when they use to put a Red triangle in one of the corners of the Screen. Laughable!!I didn't have a video 17 years ago so I had to sneek down stairs and watch it on my parents TV with the Sound down. Still I can still recall the film years later and being fixated by it.Even my Film Studies Teacher asked the class whether anyone had watched it and taped it. Radical Days.In a time of Pretty people and manufactured Films,videos and Muzak; this film dared to shock and boy oh boy did it. The sets,the sex,the clothes,music and the especially the make-up and haircuts. Toyah the pyromaniac with the vivid Red hair and Jordan with her famous twinsets,love of Floris and her asymetrical make-up.Jenny Runacre's stunning portrayal as Queen Elizabeth I and as the Punk Queen of all she surveys.Some of the Music is dire but the attention to detail cannot be denied it's almost as if in '77 they had a idea of what fashion would look like in the 80's and 90's. I dare anyone to be that inventive now. The economic and political situation was just perfect; a feeling that Great Britain's best days were behind her; economically stagnant,politically adrift and just two years before Thatcher's brave new world arrived.Oh yes and not forgetting that the Monarch had permitted a few chairs and tables in the street to eat blancmange,jelly and wave the Union Jack.In an era when people seem to spend most of their precious time on their Mobiles and wondering where the next Ibiza hioliday is coming 'Jubliee' summed up a far and distant country. Slightly done in and worn down. Down but not exactly out.25 long years later and here we are in 2002.Will another creative cutting edge Director make a homage with the up and coming.Kate Winslett in the Jenny Runacre role or maybe Madonna (No maybe not).Truth is it wouldn't happen we're far too properous to care or dare.Britain in '02 is different to '77.The agression wouldn't be genuine and the people too perfect looking. Caste of Hollyoaks I don't think so.And anyway most of the set disappeared under Docklands re-development and flashy apartments.The reality is different and any remake would be just pure nostaglia.

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I remember recording this film when it was first shown in the early days of Channel 4. I was really taken by the story and the whole decadent nature of the world Jarman had created. I had never really seen anything as violent and risque as that on tv before and its imagery has always stuck with me. It was weird seeing a very tom boy Toyah in it too and an equally young Adam Ant. Years later the film popped into my head again and a quick Amazon search revealed that it was available on dvd. I bought a copy for myself and another as a present for my girlfriend of the time as we are still in contact and I thought she would like to see it again too.

The film is very dated and the acting is not brilliant in places but that doesn't matter. That is all part of the overall style of the film imo. I loved this film when I was growing up and it was great to see it again. A real nostalgia trip but not necessarily for everyone's taste, hence 4 stars.

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A great film from the punk era. The mayhem, chaos and disrespect is highlighted extremely well. Well worth a watch if only to see some of the stars of today who must be cringing at their appearance in the film. Buy it !!

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Now that I note that it is coming out on BluRay I thought I would give it a try on a cheap copy of the Criterion DVD issue.Contrary to expectations I couldn't help but laugh at some of it; crazy insane but not pointless, although I can understand why most people aren't going to like it.I summarise as 5-star crazy.Criterion video quality is usually as good as can be expected from the best source (& this film's visual is only OK but actually appropriate for the film concept), so I'm wondering if the BluRay will really be any improvement. Might buy it to find out, so I guess that's some indication that I liked it.Incidentally, I note the forthcoming Derek Jarman Volume One: 1972 -1986 (5-disc Limited Edition Blu-ray box set) which contains JUBILEE.

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For me, Derek Jarman’s filmography started well with ‘Sebastian’ but declined thereafter, reaching a nadir with ‘Angelic Conversations’ before returning back to form with ‘Caravaggio’. As his second film, ‘Jubilee’ therefore is not, in my opinion, as loveable as ‘Sebastian’, but neither is it that much worse.

It was a clever conceit to conceive of a return to the England of 1977 of Queen Elizabeth I with her astrologer John Dee. Here Ariel shows them “the shadow of this time.” The year 1977 was the silver jubilee of our present queen, and Jarman uses this idea of the first Elizabeth’s return to the future to display a vision of a dystopian England to make his own commentary on life in the 1970s. Violence stalks the streets whilst maypole strings are composed of barbed wire – yet old ladies still play bingo and young people still take off their clothes in launderettes.

The acting and design is often terribly amateur and yet often quite captivating. Adam Ant provides some prettyboy wallpaper and Toyah Willcocks is a punk pyromaniac. The soundtrack is by no means all punk: there are moments of classical music and even a funky disco in the orgy scene (supposedly set in the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral.) And I enjoyed the rock version of ‘Jerusalem’.

Reviewing the film now, more than a generation after it came out, one wonders what all the infernal fuss was about at the time of its release. It is not particularly shocking; has some clever and insightful things to say; and is never boring. But it is not a masterpiece – its faults are all too plain to see and it can seem very amateurish in places.

The only extra on my DVD is the same Jeremy Isaacs interview Jarman gave towards the end of his life that also appears on the ‘Sebastian’ DVD. There are unfortunately – and incomprehensibly – no subtitles on my DVD.

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Derek Jarman's 1977 film Jubilee, said to be the "first official punk film" is one of the most original and disturbing urban dystopias to emerge from that era of British film-making. Setting itself in a version of late 70s London where anarchy reigns and Judge Dredd-style police are as lawless as the gangs on the street, the film never fails to surprise and Punk rock experts can play a game of spot-the-cameo. Whilst all this takes place, there's also the matter of Queen Elizabeth I, brought forward in time by the angel Arial to gain supreme knowledge...Violent and twisted, Jubille manages, however, to convince that destruction isn't the only aspect of an anarchic society, and questions the meaning meaning of life, love, history and even the violence itself in a world without balance.The only extra on the disc is a 40 minute BBC Face-to-Face documentary with Derek Jarman, which, although interesting, does not tackle the subject of this film, which is a shame as some background on the film would have been very interesting. Even so, a curio that belongs in many peoples collections.

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The punk era did not last long, but it seemed to have a huge impact on where we are now - which was not only limited to the music scene. This film is amazing, and features a very young Toyah and Adam Ant as "Boy".....

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